Shapero's Letter Case Study

“School administrators violated her free speech rights under the First Amendment by punishing her for speech that occurred outside the school.” (Document C) The school is becoming unconstitutional by punishing her for speaking her mind outside of school not even on school grounds. “Limiting the speech rights in the new electronic forum is a step in the wrong direction and not in keeping with the ideals of our constitutional framework.” (Document F) The Constitution was meant to frame America and built it into the free country that it is, which includes freedom of speech that can not be taken from we the people.

In the United States of America, the First Amendment of the Constitution assures individuals such civil liberties as the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Freedom of speech preserves not only an individual’s right to vocally express themselves unabridged, it also allows them the right to burn the American flag, engage in silent protest, and more recently (2016), get a tattoo. In some respects, freedom of speech has come to mean the freedom of communication.

So the need for more drastic, shock and awe type actions from people desiring to be heard on any particular matter has been brought to the forefront. This is where the Bill of Rights has drastically come into play. At this point the Supreme Court has to protect the freedoms without stripping Americans of their rights entirely but it also has to protect Americans from those who wish to do harm to others under the protection of freedom of speech or expression. Not only does the First Amendment provide for freedom of speech but also freedom of expression which is as equally controversial. By examining the First Amendment and the protections and exclusions it has provided over the years through three highly controversial cases, it will allow the reader some insight into the difficulties surrounding the protection of free speech. The cases that are to be examined are Snyder v. Phelps, Morse v. Frederick and Texas v. Johnson. All of these cases present a different freedom of speech or expression issue that was brought to the Supreme Court and therefore, set a standard for future rulings regarding that particular issue.

All schools should ensure that we protect the speech rights of their staff members. In this course, previously we learned how complicated speech rights can be, especially in this day of age, when more people are using social media to express their concerns. As educators, we need to know when we are protected and we also need to be careful as we express our concerns about our school’s or district policies. Usually our staff handbook has guidelines and procedures as to how we should communicate with news media outlets.

Topic: Do you believe that free speech as proscribed under the first amendment of the constitution should be limited?

Whether school board terminating the teacher violated the First Amendment right for publishing a letter in the newspaper while expressing one’s view as a concern citizen (Findlaw.com).

Although the First Amendment is not that vague, schools have struggled to define what its limits are for the past 40 years. One may argue that a student’s Freedom of Speech should not be limited because of our First Amendment rights, the fact that so many schools struggle to define their limits and that they all have different limits, also, limiting a student’s Freedom of Speech brings totalitarianism to schools.

There are many elements of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to address. The area of the Freedom of Speech applies to every aspect of our daily lives. An examination of this area shows us why there are protected and unprotected areas of speech: speeches and actions that have been debated throughout our nation’s history and why they are important and have such an impact on our individual lives and social activities today.

The first amendment of the constitution is our right to our own opinion. It is a right everyone is born with and everyone has; there are no defects. At Acton Academy we cannot and will not ban our right to our own opinion. Some of you are probably thinking “What is he talking about?” In the session before this one we made a very big mistake. We took a vote on whether we should be allowed to cuss in the Middle School. It went through and from then on we were not allowed to say any words deemed offensive. At that point it seemed harmless and nobody cared, but now I realize that it wasn’t about the cussing part, it was about protecting our right to our opinion. If I could go back in time I would have testified against it.

Carlos: Under the First Amendment, did Alpine High School offend the Constitution when it prevented Petitioner’s potentially disruptive and divisive opinion article for publication in the school sponsored newspaper?

Throughout the years, the first amendment of the United States constitution has protected the right of freedom of speech,giving our community the privilege of express our thoughts without fear of being punished. The United States first amendment gives the people the privilege to express their thoughts without fear of punishment. The first amendments has brought a massive controversy in the society and between countries. Freedom of speech gives the people liberty, but in some instances should be limited because individuals have used it as an excuse to freely discriminate races, religions and others sexual orientation; however, it should not be limited in certain cases like people protesting for their rights in a positive way, without prejudice

I think that the first amendment does protect the freedom of speech but it doesn't protect the right to say things which make others feel less important. I think that the first amendment should only

The First Amendment’s provision of free speech only applied to US Congress before the 20th century. This goes back to the second paragraph, “Congress shall make no law…” Then in the early 20th century the courts decided to make it applicable to state and local governments. It was not until the later part of the 20th century that it applied to private suits, public schools, etc. The future is as it was before the 20th century (Patterson, 2009). Freedom of speech will be challenged as a new situation comes up and goes before the Supreme Court if need be. Changes will be made as our environment needs, economic needs, physical, and emotional needs change.

The assessment for whether or not speech falls under the actual threats exemption to the First Amendment is whether or not a reasonable person would distinguish it to be a rather serious expression of an aim to cause bodily harm. I can argue the Supreme Court case on the grounds that it concerned a cross-burning, which is behavior that can be understood as a threat or not. The statements made by Elonis in this matter, on the other hand, were true communications with threatening texts to specific parties. Therefore, the plaintiff can maintain his or her "reasonable person" argument for testing an actual threat exemption to the First Amendment (Ferrilli et al.,

this case the Court considered whether the First Amendment protected non-speech acts, as Johnson was convicted of flag desecration and not of verbal communication. If acts of non-speech are protected, then would Johnson’s burning of the flag represent expressive conduct which would permit him to invoke the First Amendment in challenging his conviction. The court reiterated its long standing that the protection of speech does not end at written or spoken word, as previously decided in the case of Stomberg v. California, and Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Court acknowledged that conduct may be “sufficiently imbued with elements of communication to fall within the scope of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” Having reviewed whether the intent to convey a message was present and the likelihood that the message conveyed would be understood, by bystanders, the Court felt that there were sufficient communication elements to bring the First Amendment into play.